In 1614, Emperor Matthias had a small hunting lodge built in what was then called the Wolfsau, at the time a flood-plain (Au is an Austrian and southern German term for a riparian forest or flood-plain). Around 1650, Ferdinand III bought up the area around the nearby Tabor
(which is a Czech word used here for a fortified checkpoint outside the
city's walls) at a branch of the unregulated Danube.

He established a
formal Dutch garden and expanded the hunting lodge into a small mansion. In the 1660s, Leopold I acquired the adjacent gardens from the noble Trautson family and had it transformed into an all-comprising pleasure park. In 1677 he converted the Trautsons' garden mansion into a small palace (a so-called Lustschloss,
a palace for pleasure only), to which he gave the name "Imperial
Favorita". Later on instead of this one the name Old Favorita became
established, since in today's 4th district a New Favorita (today: Theresianum) had been built.

1683 was a bad year for Vienna and the Augarten: during the course of
the Turkish siege the grounds and buildings were destroyed in their
entirety, with exception of some parts of the walls.

Not until 1705 were
the gardens and the palace restored under Emperor Joseph I. The garden palace built at this time is now the headquarters of the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur (Augarten porcelain factory), the second oldest porcelain factory in Europe. A few years later, in 1712, the new monarch, Charles VI, commissioned landscape architect Jean Trehet - also responsible for the creation of the gardens at Schönbrunn as well as at the Belvedere - to carry out new plans to develop the whole park, in French style. Today's Augarten is still based on this.

After the opening of the Vienna Prater to the public in 1766, the Augarten was likewise opened on 1 May 1775 by Joseph II. On this occasion nightingales were settled
and hunting of them was strictly forbidden. The entrance at that time
was still guarded by soldiers, whilst inside the park grounds war
invalids and other handicapped people maintained order. The inscription Allen Menschen gewidmeter Erlustigungs-Ort von Ihrem Schaetzer
("A place of amusement dedicated to all people by their Cherisher") can
still be read at the main gate to the Augarten from Obere
Augartenstrasse. To satisfy these high expectations, dining rooms and
dance halls, refreshment places and billiard rooms were established and
for all of them the restaurateur Ignaz Jahn was responsible as traiteur.

Joseph II in 1781 ordered Isidore Canevale to erect a humble structure for the emperor and used to spend his summers there; it has become known as Josefsstöckl
and is still existing today. Today's Heinestrasse linking this building
to the Praterstern square has been planted as an alley on the order of
the emperor. During the time of the Congress of Vienna the Augarten has been a most popular meeting place of the nobility.

During the disastrous inundation which afflicted Vienna from February
1 to March 1 of 1830, the entire Augarten was flooded to a depth of
1.75 metres (nearly 6 feet). Two memorial plaques, one on the inner side
of the main portal and another at the gate to Castellezgasse,
commemorate this flood. With the regulation of the Danube
from 1860 to 1870, the Augarten became permanently separated from the
Danube river. The former riparian forest and plain changed to a
cultivated landscape, which was no longer subject to flooding.

After 1918, Augarten became a park administered by the federal government, and this stayed so until today.

Between 1934 and 1936, the dictatorial Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg lived in the Palais Augarten.

During the Second World War, military authorities chose the Augarten
as one of several places to erect massive buildings for anti-aircraft
defence (flak towers) to protect the inner city from Allied
bombing. During summer 1944 the construction of a 55 metre (180 feet)
high tower with platforms for anti-aircraft guns and nearby also a 51
metre high control tower was begun but not finished. Their remains are
still visible in the middle of the park (and from time to time objects
of ideas using the old structures as parts of modern buildings).
Moreover during the war hundreds of cubic metres of rubbish were dumped
on the site whilst armoured vehicles criss-crossed the garden and - as
it is supposed - common graves were dug for hundreds of war victims.

Today with the exception of the virtually indestructible flak towers
and the bunker (in which a restaurant is housed) nothing from this dark
period remains.